La Jolla produces yet another Nobel Prize winner

• Gerald Edelman, who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Rodney Porter for “their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies. The work provided a clear picture of the structure and mode of action of a group of biologically particularly important substances ... they laid a firm formation for truly rational research, something that was previously largely lacking in immunology. Their discoveries ... incited fervent research activity the whole world over, in all fields of immunological science, yielding results of practical value for clinical diagnostics and therapy.”

• Kurt Wuthrich, who shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in chemistry for “his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution ... He developed a general method of systematically assigned certain fixed points in the protein molecule, and also a principle for determining the distances between these. Using the distances, he was able to calculate the three-dimension structure of the protein. The advantage of NMR is that proteins can be studied in solution, an environment similar to that of the living cell.”

• Sydney Brenner, who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with two other scholars for “establishing C. elegans as a novel experimental model organism. ... Brenner also demonstrated that a chemical could produce specific genetic mutations in the worm, allowing different mutations to be linked to specific effects on organ development.” The work of Brenner and his fellow laureates in medicine “has implications for understanding a range of diseases, including cancer, AIDS, strokes and neurodegenerative diseases.”

• Renato Dulbecco, who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with two other scholars for “their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell. ... This technique combined with the discovery of several viruses which could cause transformation in animals and in cell cultures provided facilities for studies of the role of the virus in this process.”

• Roger Guillemin, who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for “discoveries within the field of peptide hormones (peptides being substances built by chains of amino acids). Many hormones in the body belong to this group and are produced by the hypophysis, the thyroid gland, and the parathyroid glands, the placenta, the gastro-intestinal track and other tissues. New such hormones are still being discovered.”

• Hamilton Smith, who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with two other scholars for “their discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics. The task of genetics is to describe and explain how genes are organized and expressed in cells and in living organisms. The discovery of restriction enzymes provided new tools for the detailed chemical analysis of the mechanisms of gene action. Even though these enzymes have been available only during a few years their application to genetics has already led to new and far reaching results, in particular concerning the organization and expression of genes.”